life has the meaning we give it

Sleepless in Dubai

extreme tiredness and other physical effects felt by a person after a long flight across different time zones.

“she was suffering from jet lag and needed to rest”… nahhh! really????!!! Tell me about it…

24 hours+ but we finally made it into Dubai at 5am local time. Hot, dry, sterile. “it looks very modern and new” commented Marcos to the driver while we went down Sheik Zayed rd ~language barrier~ “yes, yes, very clean, very clean” he stated proudly.

Got to the hotel and of course our room wasn’t ready, so we dived into our suitcases, grabbed our -got-to-the-hotel-too-early-essentials- and headed to the pool.

Aha… the pool at 6 am. Let me paint a picture in your mind: onlyblondeinbikini. Other women there were wearing a jilbab {a woman’s modest dress} and a hijab {head covering or veil}. Tad uncomfortable so we covered ourselves and headed out to see the grand Burj Khalifa.

9am: 30 degrees. Burj Khalifa is impressive. So tall it doesn’t fit in my camera, bummer. Tallest building in the world since 2010 (211 floors in total- 829.8m tall). Took only 5 years to build at a cost of USD $1.5 billion. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai has a penthouse at the very top. Sorry Donald, you’re fired!

Neighbouring the tallest building in the world is the largest mall in the world. So we went in. Oh yeah baby! Welcome to Shoe District: 300 brands and the most breathtaking shoe designs. We walked around and visited the Aquarium and Underwater Zoo with its underwater tunnel and glass bottomed boats. Did I mention it is also the largest suspended aquarium in the world?

Lunch and mall hopping with friends till 10 pm.

After a 5 hour sleep – with interruptions: kids woke up to start the day at 2am – we headed to the Dubai Mall again for some ice skating. There was a sand storm so going to the beach was a no go.

A few hours later we were on the plane heading to our first european home: Firenze.

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I am Pippi... some know me as Ximena, the name my dear parents carefully chose for me a few decades ago. They obviously didn't consider the fact that having more of an international name or one that anybody could pronounce anytime-any-where- would be somehow beneficial. I guess they couldn't predict the effect of globalisation...
So for the sake of my mental health (and probably yours), let's go with Pippi.
A little about me